With work responsibilities defining your Mondays to Fridays, the weekend is often the only quality time a family gets to spend together.
Why not pack the television and game console remotes away and reclaim your weekend with a creative project as a family, taking back the right to create happy memories with your loved ones? The Nestlé SMARTIES Box-a-Thon is here to help you achieve exactly this and more.
Break from the old routine
While extramural activities the likes of soccer, ballet and karate are important to the growth and development of children, quality time with their parents is also vital to their general sense of well-being. With a few tweaks to your routine, it is possible to take control of your family’s social schedule and carve out time to relax and have fun as together on the weekends.
Educator, school leader and SMARTIES expert in imaginative play, Gavin Keller offers the following tips to parents wishing to spend more quality time with their children:
- Diarise family time: Pencil in at least one morning or afternoon on your weekend calendar dedicated to family time. Commit to this important appointment and try your very best not to reschedule. You’ll find that by Monday morning you’re more connected as a family and ready to face the busy week ahead
- Family Planning: Involve your children in the decision-making on how you’re going to spend your family time together. By discussing your weekend plans with your little ones you build their anticipation, which is almost as fun as the activity
- Project Fun: Get involved in a creative project that is fun for the whole family. The Nestlé SMARTIES “Out of This World” Box-a-Thon is a good example of an activity that can help moms, dads and their children to bond over a common creative goal.
Inspiring Creativity
Keller suggests the following ways to get your little ones’ creative juices flowing: “Page through books with beautiful illustrations for ideas on what sort of model he would like to create. Play appropriate music while creating your SMARTIES box model and you’ll be amazed as ideas start to emerge.”
“Be sure to dress your child in play clothes so that they can feel free to engage their tactile senses during this project, as this will help stimulate creativity. Make up stories with your little artist about the character you are creating and you’ll find that certain additions need to be made to your model as you go along,” adds Keller.
Getting Creative with Family Time
“In line with our commitment to promoting quality family time and furthering creative education, the Nestlé SMARTIES ‘Out of This World’ Box-a-Thon seeks to challenge primary school kids to think out the box.
With this mind, we’re inviting all children to showcase their imagination by creating their very own ‘out of this world’ model using SMARTIES boxes. From a fantastical robot of the future to a mythical creature from a bygone era, there is no limit to how creative entrants can be,” explains Nestlé spokesperson, Ravi Pillay.
Once completed, children need simply to take a photograph of their inspired design and upload their pic onto www.SMARTIES.co.za. One winner will be the lucky recipient of a family holiday for four to Orlando, Florida in the USA. Runner-up prizes include a Kindle Fire HD tablet with fun and educational games, as well as clothing vouchers to the value of R1 500.
The Box-a-Thon competition starts on April 15th and ends June 30th 2014. Winners will be announced on August 8th, 2014 on www.SMARTIES.co.za. Terms and conditions can be found on the Nestlé SMARTIES website.
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